Jim,
I was reading, " Browsers usually download the background images after everything else. By loading your background files using css you have an advantage because the text content will be displayed first and, in most cases, this is the content that your visitor is interested in. Here’s an example of a css based background:
In the <head> or stylesheet
.background-image
{ background: url(filename.gif);
width: 200px;
height: 100px }
in the body <div class="background-image"></div>
But with so many images I don’t want to load up my style sheet becuase I read style sheets are loaded into the visitors browser.
One way to do avoid using an image tag is supposedly to use an inline style tag, and use an image tag to not lose the alt attribute, <image src="something.gif" class="background-image" alt="description" />
I don’t see how this second img tag is any less trouble than the first img tag.
Is there a way to handle many different images for many different pages and not use the IMG tag, still have the title nd alt of an image tag and not load up a style sheet with the image addresses?
Thanks Jim,
Roger
Jim,
I guess that would be donr with a PHP Includes file. Are PHP includes files also loaded into the user’s browser?
Roger
Hi Roger,
On the server that serves webpages to the public, there is a setting that says anything with a .php extension should be parsed for code and when code is found, run that code, take the output and replace the code with the output.
So, if you have a php file, say Roger.php which has:
<html>
<head>
<title>Today is special</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello, did you know that today is:
< ?php
// prints something like: Friday the 1st
echo date("l the jS");
? >
</p>
<p>Thanks and visit again!</p>
</body>
</html>
The server will first look at the page and find the code, run the code, and display the output. When a visitor views the source, they will see:
<html>
<head>
<title>Today is special</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello, did you know that today is: Friday the 1st</p>
<p>Thanks and visit again!</p>
</body>
</html>
The visitor never sees the code.
So, the answer is no, php files are never loaded into the user’s browser, only the output from the code inside the php file is loaded.
Does that help?
Note: You can tell your server to check .html files for php code before sending output to the browser by entering this into your .htaccess file.
AddType application/x-httpd-php .html
Jim,
Is PHP includes the way to handle different images for each page, so no IMG tag is used?
Roger
Jim,
I’m trying to get rid of the img tag for in favor of the CSS background image way so my images will load last, but Ive gone astray. I have
<img src="actualcures dotcom/curry.jpg" title="Curry Powder" alt="Curry Powder" height="75" width="75" />
I put a copy of the curry.jpg in the wp-includes file, but I know replacing
<img src="actualcures dotcom/curry.jpg" title="Curry Powder" alt="Curry Powder" height="75" width="75" />
with
<?php include("wp-includes/curry.jpg"); ?>
won’t work, I don’t even involve CSS, so how do I do this?
Roger
Hi Roger,
That is going to be found in your theme directory, then look for styles.css and inside that file, you’ll find the image.
Is that what you’re look for?
Best regards,
Jim.
Jim,
Someone was telling me that so long as you include the dimensions of the image in the image tag, browsers will automatically load the image after the text file. Fortunately, I already had the dimensions in the tag.
I realized you can see the order of the files being loaded with this site I recently found. You can see in the graph it creates where in time each file of a page begins to load.
ht tp: //site24x7.com/web-page-analyzer.html
And it shows my images loading last.
Thanks,
Roger
Thanks for the link to the web page analyzer Roger, I’ll be sure to check this out.
Regards,
Jim.
Jim,
On this page websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/ after enetring a site you may see
"HTML_SIZE – Congratulations, the total size of this HTML file is 19730 bytes, which less than 20K. Assuming that you specify the HEIGHT and WIDTH of your images, this size allows your page to display content in well under 8 seconds, the average time users are willing to wait for a page to display without feedback. "
See how they talk about the dimesnsions and content. I don’t think they include images in their definition of content, so they’re also saying that images will load last if you provide the dimensions of the images.
Thanks,
Roger